‘The Market Cannot Go Any Further Without Participation From the Banks’ – Every Pundit
You hear this all the time. Whether it is related to the business cycle or economic cycle or market cycle. Is it true? Who know’s, it might be. But I find it more interesting to look and see why the Banks are not participating any more. Yes I said anymore. Because they did start higher in October 2011 and then had a tremendous run higher from late 2012 through until March this year. Hmmm, that is about the same run as the broad market. Maybe it is true. Lets save that for another day. The chart of the Financial Select Sector SPDR (ARCA:XLF), below shows several reasons why the Financials may not go higher/lower for a while. First the move higher has now retraced 50% of the fall from the 2007 highs. That is also an important area as you can see from the red rectangle all the way back to 1999.
The other indicators on the chart are mixed. The accumulation /distribution statistic is showing accumulation still. And all of the Moving Averages are rising. But the RSI and MACD, momentum indicators are moving lower supporting the downside. Conflict or as technicians call it, divergence. The trend in this chart remains higher. And even another 6 months in this range around the red rectangle will not change that. If the banks are the key to further gains the market could be done for the year. If they are just getting pulled along then there is plenty of room to move higher when the price gets out of this range. Which will it be?
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